HUMOR IN CROSS CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC BACKGROUNDS

I will discuss methodologies and background understanding of both the comedy and sarcasm. The purpose of the paper is to appreciate that sarcasm and comedy are universal across all countries and is an effective method of passing sensitive information funnily and positively. In a linguistic point of view, I will use Co-operative Principles developed by Paul Grice for humor analysis. Keywords: comedy, humor, sarcasm, Grice`s Co-operative Principles Introduction Humor is a general aspect of comedy and sarcasm that is a form of interaction in which we are exposed to in our day to day lives. We experience humor in every day’s situations. Additionally, educational video games, podcasts, blog posts, and many people have also developed various comic ways to attract readers` attention as a way of informing them and at the same time entertaining.

The personality of the audience plays a fundamental role when it comes to elaborating an individual`s self of humor. Another viable factor that affects a person`s sense of humor is the culture. The individual in different cultural origins has distinct social norms, belief, and codes. Culture plays a deep role in what makes one laugh. The significant difference for him is that situations can be sarcastic, but an individual cannot be. Toplak (2000) claims that multiple variables affect the use ad degree of sarcasm is a day to day communication. The main factors include the nature of the speaker, exaggeration, relationship of the speaker to the audience and if the criticism is in public or private. On the other hand, Katz and Toplak (2000) conclude that there are defining factors that are in place that differentiates irony and sarcasm.

It is the level of the aggressiveness. For instance, a comedy can end featuring a reunion of emotions and feelings that were separated by adverse circumstances. A comedy encompasses the representation of day to day lives of people by exploring human feelings. It ends happily or having one character that leads. In the various literary application of comedy is the fictional work in most materials that are chosen and managed primarily to make people laugh. The characters ensure that they make the audience feel confidence before the disaster occurs followed by actions that will turn every person happy. Grice realized that human language is flexible and creative systems that can make communication not only make it but also be successful in the end.

Human language should have particular qualities. Grice (1975) proposes that in a typical conversation, audience and speakers have a common a co-operate principle. The co-operative principle according to Grice (1975) states that “make your conversational contribution such as required at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. ” His proposal means that a speaker should be sensitive and need to supply information that they are sure the audience does not have. In Relation, the contribution of the speaker should have a clear relationship between the objectives of the exchange. This is to mean that participant should be speaking out something that is relevant to the title or the topic of the speech.

In Manner, the speaker should avoid ambiguity, avoid obscurity of speech and expression, and be brief and orderly. For a better understanding of the Grief`s Cooperative Principle, there should be a clear explanation of the same. Maxim of quantity claims that one should say information that is only helpful but not too much or too less. Any competent speaker does not need elaboration on the response because speaker B means that beef has been already eaten the dog. The conversation should not be the basis of what is there but what is relevant to what is asked. If he mentions the dog, then it is definitely the answer to the question. This is the most fundamental assumption to what people hear or talk in a conversation.

Maxims of Manner implies been precise about the topic and straightforward to the points. Thus, humor happens mostly because of persons` daily language talk. Grice`s Co-operative Principle is the fundamental theory that is majorly used to analyze and manage conversation among people. Grice`s forms of maxims are what has been guiding one since one first learn how to speak, and people tend to follow either consciously or unconsciously. More often in people`s daily conversation, they disobey or fail to follow Grice`s Co-operative Principle. Both the speaker and respondent end the conversation when four Maxims of Grice`s Cooperative Principle are violated. For instance:nadequate required information develops humor. When a conversation goes like this: A girl was strolling along the way when she met Tom with a dog.

“Does your dog bite? The girl asked. “No,” said Tom. When the girl tries to play with the dog it almost bites her; she screamed, “I thought you said he does not bit. The barber washed his face and told him to soap it. The young boy waited for more than 15 minutes till he lost his patience) Young boy: What are you leaving me here for such a long time? Barber: I am waiting for your beard to grow. In the conversation, it seems that the young boy was very eager to show to the barber how grown he is by wanting the beard shaved. The barber was very wise and did not refuse to give him the service he wanted.

He treated the young boy like any other adult clients be getting the boy sat, wash his face and soap him all over the face and left. Chemistry teacher: What is water? Dirty looking student: Water is a colorless liquid that when a dip my hand into it turns dark (Li, 2002). Chemistry teacher asked the class the definition of water. He expected the student to answer using chemistry terms especially the molecular point of view. However, the student gave out a correct answer regarding his daily life, but it was not related to the Chemistry class. Consequently, the class broke into laughter because it develops into humor. A shy man did not respond in a good way, and he shouted, “What do you mean that you charge $500?” The girl too was embarrassed.

From the talk above it shows that both were going against the maxim of manner. At the first time, the girl embarrassed the boy, and he revenges by embarrassing the girl too. Both the two utterances are full of unorganized and illegible sentences, but at the end, the crowd burst into laughter because it causes a humorous effect. According to all the illustrations of the four maxims of Grice`s Cooperative Principle, it implies that humor usually results from the conscious violation of the CP and its maxims. Therefore, CP is a great tool that is fully inclusive of language as the basis of expounding multicultural and linguistic basis of fun. Going back to our topic, for a clear insight of humor, it is essential to depend on the pragmatics knowledge to assist on how to analyze humor in cross-cultural communication (Davies, 2003).

Additionally, it should give people an insight into how foreign languages can better understand the other sides. One needs to read out the intended meaning relying on a particular context to find out the actual intention of the speaker. Methodology The objective of the interview helps in answering the research question "to what extent is considered funny in American culture and the same in Arabic culture?" Additionally, to assist participants to become familiar with particular speech acts, to make one aware of the various violations of maxims and its effects and also to make them gain knowledge of the cross/cultural differences of humor. Then the scene continues and Sheldon speaks. Sheldon- That’s a perfect metaphor Amy because it also involves a ring that binds me in the servitude forever.

1 9 Relation 3. Sheldon and Amy sitting together and talking about their wedding. Sheldon- if you’d have told me as a child that an actor from Star Trek would be officiating my wedding I would’ve said “ Ohh William Shatner” and if you would’ve said “ No Wil Wheaton” I’d have said “ well did you even try William Shatner” 9 1 Manner 4. Cooper- you know our driver to the airport was also an Indian fella. Mrs. Cooper daughter- Mom!! Mrs. Cooper- Oh so now it’s racist to notice when somebody’s Indian. Raj- I don’t think it’s racist. From the observations, while the clip was playing, some participants laugh even without speakers ending the conversation, others laugh after the conversations end, and the remaining did not laugh at all.

I realized that the laughter in the clip is a cue for norm violations, once they can interpret the implication they may begin to appreciate the linguistic conversation and illustrate the consequences of the violations. The main problem that faces the participants who did not laugh is a failure to interpret the joke. By giving them insight and getting access to violations of Grief`s maxims they may gradually understand the use of humor as the best pragmatic language and legitimate linguistic to use across all the cross-cultural dimension. Conclusion Humor is a part of language habit and conversation that has incongruity. The problem of having insight about this has been the endless quest of many including sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, bards, entertainers, writers, comedians, and linguists.

Overall, inadequate cross-cultural awareness has many effects, some severe others comical. It is imperative that in the world economy cross-cultural awareness is seen a vital investment to eradicate such misunderstanding as we have seen while watching the Big Bang Theory. References Attardo, S. Violation of Conversational Maxims and Cooperation: the case of jokes. Davies, C. E. How English-learners Joke with Native Speakers: An Interactional Sociolinguistic Perspective on Humor as Collaborative Discourse across Cultures. Journal of Pragmatics, 35. Grice, H. N. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Li Dong. The World of English Humor. Humor more often involves wordplay and exceptional colloquial expressions. Humor needs outstanding knowledge of a language. Understanding humor requires an insight into the culture. Humor can be useful in particular circumstances.